Some problems of peptic ulcer

Abstract

I T is a pleasure and a compliment to be asked to contribute to a voIume in honor of my old friend, Emile Holman. As surgeon, writer and man, and as one of the last of the Humanistic teachers in this era of the new mechanomedicine, he deserves our sincere tribute. It is perhaps especially appropriate that I should summarize views on peptic uIcer which have developed during a medical lifetime, since Dr. Holman and I have broken many a lance through the years over these questions. As the hlontagues and the Capulets were finally reconciled, I believe that our concepts have now come together, and happily, without a tragedy such as that of the ‘“star-crossed lovers. We do not propose to give a text book discussion of “peptic ulcer.” That has been we11 done recently by others; in the monographs of Ivy et al.’ and of Sandweiss an innumerabIe array of what the Autocrat of the BreakJust Table calls “brute facts” are set forth. It is, however, necessary in introducing our argument to emphasize a few eIementary concepts pertaining to the whoIe subject.